"It must be some peasant ceremony of welcome," I say airily. The Na'kuhl glares at me. "You really shouldn't have gone to all the trouble," I tell him. He glares some more.
Behind him, a pale-green line of chronoplasma stabs through the twilight, shooting up at the stars. There is an ominous warbling of Klingon disruptors in the background as well. I don't know what's in those big hexagonal buildings, but clearly it's worth fighting over. I'm itching to go take a look, but me and my landing party are currently surrounded by Na'kuhl guards with itches of their own, mostly in their trigger fingers, and I'm not sure how far my bluff with the Organian will carry me.
"Reading multiple Klingon and Na'kuhl life signs," says Kara Grant. The Na'kuhl are looking daggers at her tricorder, too. "Weapons fire - well, obviously. There's a few other life signs, I think mostly Klingon auxiliaries... and one other." She frowns. "Suliban, maybe? It's hard to tell with all this sensor interference."
"There is a local difficulty," a fresh, harsh voice says from behind me. I turn around. Another Na'kuhl is striding towards us. This one looks... well, confident. Important. The ones we've seen so far are obviously just grunts, like the three security guards I've got backing up me, Kara and T'Pren - but this Na'kuhl moves with a definite arrogance in her stride, even though I can't read any rank insignia on her uniform. She has those weird facial markings that make it look like her eyes are bleeding. Maybe this makes her dead sexy by Na'kuhl standards. It's not doing anything for me, though.
"Captain Veronika Grau, USS Harrier," I say. "Call me Ronnie, everyone does. What's with all the running around and shooting, then?"
"I am Luga." She fixes me with a glare from her red eyes. "You should not be here. There is a local difficulty, and I cannot guarantee your safety."
"Don't worry, I can't guarantee yours either. We'd gathered you were cosy with the Klinks, so what's brought all this on?"
"There is a local difficulty," she repeats. Somewhere nearby, someone vents a dying scream in a locally-difficult sort of way.
"Sounds like it," I say. "Well, maybe we can help? Starfleet is famous for its ability to resolve difficulties with goodwill and diplomacy." Behind me, Yeoman Harris makes a sort of stifled noise. He was one of the ground troops during that Sircab IV incident, which was not notable for goodwill.
"This is not a matter for Starfleet or the Federation," says Luga.
"Oh, but it is," I say. "Under the terms of the Organian treaty, undeveloped worlds like this belong to whoever can develop them most effectively. And if the Klingons are planning any development, we're entitled to come see what they're doing, and put in a counter-offer if we feel like it."
Luga gives me a very nasty look. "This planet lies outside the regions specified in the Organian peace treaty."
"That is not technically correct," says T'Pren. "According to our charts of the isoenergetic ionization fields in this sector -"
"Your measurements are incorrect," Luga snaps.
"Yeah, well," I say, "setting boundaries in space is always kind of a fraught issue, isn't it? We could argue about iso-whatevers for a long time, but the reality is, this is a world in the fringes of our mutual frontier, and whatever the ionization readings say, the fact is, it's governed by the treaty because the Organians are taking a direct interest."
"So I gather." I didn't think it was possible for her to look any uglier, but she manages it. "Where is your Organian observer?"
"Clefune? Around and about. Probably in several places at once, you know what Organians are like.... I'm surprised he isn't making all your weapons red hot already, come to think of it. Maybe he's waiting for us to take a hand ourselves."
"We do not need your help in dealing with this -"
"Local difficulty? You wouldn't get it anyway. Under the terms of the treaty, we'd probably have to side with the Klingons, against you. Don't worry, I'm not anxious to start it. I'd prefer it if people stopped shooting, in fact. Much less strain on my nerves."
She snorts, and eyes me in a way that I don't like at all. I probably know more about the Na'kuhl than I should, maybe more than most people in this current Starfleet, because I must be the last person alive who managed to stay awake through all of Admiral Reed's reminiscences... but knowing about them makes me painfully aware of what I don't know. Are these idealistic Na'kuhl, out to preserve their timeline and their civilization, or are they the ground-down, cynical terrorists that Reed and the old Enterprise ran into? And, technically, whatever sort of Na'kuhl she is, Luga is from my future. So what does she know about me, that makes her give me funny looks?
"You may soon get your wish." She looks down at her wrist, where she is wearing some sort of monitoring device that's probably better than my ship's entire sensor suite. "I think the firing is dying down. The localized dispute between the Klingons and our support units will soon be resolved, and you can then discuss the arrangements under the Organian treaty with Captain Kirza. I am sure you will find her just as reasonable as we have." Her thin lips are very tight. "I may have issues of my own to raise with Captain Kirza -"
Then there is a strange humming sound in the air, and a faint, shimmering rainbow glow steals through the Priyanapari twilight.
Kara raises her tricorder. "I'm getting some very strange readings -"
The rainbow light flickers and intensifies, illuminating the large hexagonal buildings. The shooting has stopped. On the outskirts of the area, I notice brief silent flickers of Klingon transporter beams.
The rainbows fade away. And so do the buildings under them. Luga's mouth drops open. So does mine, but I close it quick. I move next to Kara and peer at her tricorder screen.
"Quantum-entangled temporal anomaly?" I sound clever, there. It's just because I spent a lot of time studying the theory behind the Stygmalian Rift and whatever went on inside it. I know temporal malarky when I see it, and I'm looking at some now.
"It... could be, sir," says Kara.
"That is my suspicion also." T'Pren has a tricorder out herself. "Something was linked to those buildings at a subchronal causative level. That - influence - has now been removed. In its absence -"
The big buildings themselves have become... absent. Some Na'kuhl, who were sheltering behind them, now stand up and look a bit stupid. There is a clatter and a crash as a lean-to structure, with nothing left to lean against, falls over.
I run things around in my head. I'm not sure I like the answers. There was something here, there was a "local difficulty" over it between the Klingons and the Na'kuhl... and now that something isn't here any more. And the Na'kuhl are still around, while the Klingons beamed out. Conclusion: whatever it is, the Klingons have it.
I squint into the gathering darkness. Or do they? Because the buildings may have vanished, but they've left something behind....
I stroll off towards it, whatever it is. One of the Na'kuhl guards blocks my path; I keep on strolling. He gives me a look that's redolent of loathing, and steps aside. You can go anywhere if you can fake enough confidence.
I get within about twenty yards of the thing, then stop. I look at it.
It's a complex metal thing, quite a bit taller than me, and formidably complicated. In fact - I frown. Maybe it's the dimness of the light - I would have to arrive at local nightfall, wouldn't I? - but I can't quite follow the lines of the thing; it's as if part of it shoots off in some direction that I can't visualize. The sensation is... disturbing.
"Shoo-in for the Turner Prize," I mutter. Then I call out, loudly, "So what's this, then?"
"None of Starfleet's concern." Luga's voice; she is coming towards me, moving with all the confidence that I've been trying to project, only I'm not sure she's faking it. "This - artifact - is an anomaly, true, but we are not able to analyse it more specifically -"
"So stand back and let the Starfleet experts have a go," I suggest. It earns me another glare. If looks could kill, I'd at least be severely maimed by now.
"Starfleet has no expertise in this area," Luga hisses.
"Well, we won't know until we've tried, will we? In any case -"
I had some plans for how that sentence was meant to end, but I have to put them on hold, because at that moment a tall, lean figure comes bursting through the ranks of the Na'kuhl, barges right into me, and knocks me down. I have a brief glimpse of green scaly skin - Suliban? - and then the figure leaps towards the artifact, while I sprawl on the ground.
The thing seems to revolve in some peculiar sort of way, its many components shifting into unsettling new configurations. The Suliban is jumping at it - no, not at it, into it. The artifact has shaped itself into something with a man-sized doorway in it, and the Suliban is heading straight into that opening.
There is a brilliant flash of light, painful on my dark-adapted eyes. I swear under my breath, and try to stand up. I blink through vivid after-images.
"Who was that masked man?" I ask. Nobody answers.
Kara and T'Pren have come up, are aiming their tricorders at the artifact, are industriously scanning away. Several of the Na'kuhl seem to be doing the same. There is no trace of the Suliban, anywhere in sight.
Luga is standing a little way from me, looking intently at the artifact. There is a new look on her leathery face, and after a moment or two, I figure out what it is. So far, she's done arrogant, angry, contemptuous, and hostile. But now she's doing something else entirely. Now, she looks worried.
And I suspect I need to start worrying, too.
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